Recently, I came across a rather straightforward article on HN titled “We were wrong about convergence.” It was quite interesting, discussing a foundational theory (the Solow–Swan growth model) that was once questioned by the economics community, later widely accepted, but is now being overturned by reality: Do poor countries truly grow faster than rich ones?

I recently read a short blog post by Terry Godier titled “Phantom Obligation.” On the surface, the article discusses the interface design and psychological implications of modern applications—a topic that isn’t particularly grand, and its length is restrained. Yet, in an almost understated manner, it points to a psychological state we experience almost daily but rarely take the time to name. Often, what truly exhausts us and fills us with guilt isn’t real responsibilities but rather those unconfirmed “shoulds.”

At the end of last year, during a training program at a police academy, I wrote an article titled “What It’s Like to Study at a Police Academy”. During that same training period, I happened to reconnect with a former classmate who works at an arbitration commission and arranged for some of the trainees to visit her workplace. This was my first hands-on exposure to an arbitration institution.

What exactly is democracy, as a foundational concept of modern society? Coincidentally, Old T recently encountered a case in his residential community where a vote was held to ban electric bicycles from entering. Taking a glimpse through this small window, I believe it can, to some extent, help explain this concept.

I began systematically engaging with AI in 2023. Before that, my understanding of AI was largely confined to conceptual discussions or scattered application scenarios, with limited overall practicality. At least from the perspective of ordinary users and widespread industry adoption, AI truly entered the “usable stage” around the time of ChatGPT 3.0.

Recently, in discussions about American society, a frequently mentioned phenomenon is the so-called “Cutoff Line."(Dead Line) Many people tend to attribute this issue to insufficient welfare, ruthless capitalism, or governance failures. However, focusing solely on the surface level of the system often overlooks a deeper factor: the choice inherent in legal culture itself. In fact, different societies have different answers to questions like “Who should bear the consequences of failure?” and “Should the state intervene in advance?” It is in this sense that revisiting the governance logic in traditional Chinese legal culture may provide a neglected comparative perspective for understanding America’s “cutoff line” phenomenon.

While scrolling through the HN forum this morning, I came across an article on the homepage titled “60% of Legal Searches Now End Without a Click. Here’s What That Means for Your Firm.” Although it discusses the situation with American search engines, the situation in China is quite similar. Currently, over 60% of online searches related to legal questions no longer result in any webpage clicks. Users complete their information gathering and even decision-making directly on the search results page or within the AI-generated summaries provided by the search engine. The article predicts that by mid-2026, this proportion could rise to 70%–80%.

Recently in a WeChat group, I came across ROYWANG’s article “Who is Secretly Following You? Adding an RSS Subscription Counter to Your Blog” . The author created a small script to count blog RSS subscribers, but it only works for blogs whose domain is hosted on Cloudflare. Since my blog uses both VPS and Vercel, the situation is different. Over the weekend, I explored this issue and found the process surprisingly straightforward.

Perhaps because I have recently answered several questions on Zhihu regarding prosecutors and courts, I have been frequently invited to respond to inquiries about the “jury system,” such as “What are your thoughts on the jury system?” “What is the difference between the jury system and the prosecutorial system?” and “What are the pros and cons of the jury system?” After briefly scanning some highly upvoted answers, I noticed that many users with a scientific mindset directly applied mathematical probability calculations to conclude that “under the rule requiring unanimity for a verdict, as long as each individual is mentally sound, the collective outcome will be significantly more accurate than an individual’s judgment.” While such calculations serve as a useful attempt at popular science, helping ordinary people intuitively understand the operational logic of the jury system, they unfortunately overlook the unpredictability of human thought and behavior. Drawing conclusions from simple calculations can lead to significant deviations in real-life scenarios. Here, I will also briefly share my perspective on the jury system.

Recently, Old T saw a doctor in his social circle recommending the Johns Hopkins University “History of Medicine” syllabus. From a global comparative perspective, it provides a detailed introduction, starting with comparisons of medical texts from the Near East, Mediterranean, and China 3,000 years ago, as well as comparisons of medical and bodily concepts between ancient Greece and China. It then covers how Persian and other Western medical knowledge spread eastward and how Chinese medicine spread westward. What surprised me most was that this syllabus from a top American medical school openly discusses the influence of religion on modern Western medicine, particularly how modern Western medicine, in its formation, institutionalization, and value orientation, largely inherits the religious culture of the Western Middle Ages.